Friday, July 7, 2017

Our life, our times :: 9 :: Of Indian cars and their market

For
some time I had been thinking of changing my vehicle which I had had for more
than seven years. It was an Estillo from
the Maruti Suzuki stable and had rendered me decent service. We do not dare to
travel out of Bhopal on account of the reported road conditions. It, therefore,
ran all through within the confines of the city. It was good and economical but
was small – only of 3 cylinders and was of under 1000 cc. We wanted a slightly
bigger vehicle wherein we could sit with greater comfort on the rear seats, now
that both of us seldom drive.

So
we got cracking looking for a suitable vehicle that not only met our
requirements, but was within our budget. Today India is different in so far as cars
are concerned; one is spoilt for choice. Time was when there were only three
makes of cars that were available one of which wound down pretty early being
unable to feed the market. It was the Standard of Madras (now Chennai) which
used to manufacture variations of the vehicles produced by Standard Triumph of
United Kingdom. One of these was Standard Herald, Indian version of Triumph Herald,
introduced in mid 1960s, but by 1970s it did the disappearing act.

The
Hindustan Motors’ Ambassador had a good run for almost half a century until 2014
but in 2017 it sold the brand and trade mark to the PSA Group of France.
Ambassador cars were favourites of ministers who used to ride around on these
mostly of white colour. Birlas, the owners of Hindustan Motors, had such a
stranglehold on the government that they did not allow any other make to appear
in the Indian market. At one time the Ambassador was even used to be called
“king of the roads”. After economic reforms of 1991 it became a curiosity as it
was made on the platform of half a century old Morris Oxford Series III. Some
were even exported to England just for fun.

The third make was of Fiat which
later collaborated with an Indian firm Premier Automobiles. It put its Padmini
on the roads in the mid 1970s. Built on the platform of its precursor Fiat 1100
it became quite popular in 1970s and 1980s. But it soon collapsed when the new
small and fuel-efficient cars were introduced in mid 1980s. Though the Padmini plant
owned by the Walchand Group was shut down somewhere around 1990s a few taxi
cabs of that vintage can even now be seen on Mumbai roads.

These three together would produce 15000 to
20000 cars per annum. No wonder, huge number of people used to be waitlisted.
There used to be even quotas for the government and government servants to speed
up delivery to them. Here, too, people had to wait at least a couple of years
before they got their vehicle. It was that classic “license permit raj”. In the
meantime in early 1970s Sanjay Gandhi jumped into the fray hoping to cash in on
a market ruled by scarcity. He promised a cheap car named Maruti for just Rs.
6000/-. It never saw the light of day and eventually Suzuki of Japan was
persuaded to take over his ramshackle plant and his Maruti brand name. Indians,
those who could afford a car, therefore, were denied a decent automobile
because of government’s tight control for reasons that could only be called bizarre.

It
was former Prime Minister Narsimha Rao who opened the automobile sector and in
a matter of few years the economy acquired its tiger-ish traits riding the automobile
boom. Almost all manufacturers – from South Korea and Japan to the US and
Europe – came and setup automobile plants here. The market was starving for
decent and modern economical cars manufactured in modern automatic plants.
While the earlier Indian manufacturers left the scene having been vanquished,
only two new ones – Daewoo from South Korea and General Motors from the US – have
called it quits. Nonetheless, the Indian automobile industry is now one of the
largest in the world, annually producing around 24 million vehicles as reported
at the end of last fiscal. Of these 3 million were passenger vehicles. One can
see them on the Indian roads fighting for space and generally causing jams even
at unthinkable tier II and III towns. This is a far cry from what we had
experienced in 1960s and 1970s. Even the luxury vehicles like Jaguars, Land
Rovers, Mercedes, Audi’s and BMWs which one saw running around only abroad are
now being manufactured in the country. The country literally is awash with
automobiles.

And
yet, we had a futile wait of as many as three months before we got a vehicle of
our liking. Since 1984 I have been patronising Maruti Suzuki cars. I had as
many as four of them one after the other as I found them good – light on the
fuel and least troublesome. They would seldom have a break-down and as its
service stations have proliferated one didn’t have much of a problem to have
the vehicle attended to.

These plus points made me book another Maruti
Suzuki vehicle – this time the bigger one, a sedan named Swift Dzire. As the
firm decided to discontinue use of the “Swift” prefix to call it simply
“D’zire” with minor changes in its overall make up my booking was converted for
this model. And that made me wait for as many as three months with no guarantee
that it would be made available anywhere in the near future. That’s when I said
enough was enough and I cancelled the booking. Perhaps change in the model and
introduction of GST caused some delay but an indefinite delay cannot be
tolerated.

There
was another reason for the delay. I had asked for the basic model of D’zire.
But, the team leader of the dealer said, these basic models take longer time to
be delivered as their demand is low and the manufacturer first feeds the high-end
market. He said, customers these days mostly ask for vehicles that are “fully
loaded” with additional features. Hence these are given priority. The Indian
middle class obviously has changed – and changed for the better (?). They now
want more sophisticated high-end cars with various luxury features and
fixtures.

Hence, the leading car maker Maruti Suzuki stopped
manufacturing its basic 800 cc model with which it started its operations in
India. It used to be the cheapest and a pretty good car but now nobody, it
seems, wants it. Because of such negative reasons even Tata’s Nano bombed in
the market. He thought of making this cheap small car (initially costing only
Rs.1 lakh, 1600-odd dollars) having seen families of four commuting on two-wheelers.
He took a lot of trouble in producing it cutting down on many non-essentials,
made it very light on fuel and had it designed in Italy. He introduced it in competition
with Maruti 800, the market share of which promptly tumbled by 20%. But,
curiously Nano was shunned by even those for whom it was actually meant. They, probably,
are keeping their eyes peeled for a bigger and more sophisticated car.

Such is the Indian automobile market. Highly
aspirational, wouldn’t you say?

Search This Blog

About Me

There would seem to be no point in talking about the position I used to hold. What is more relevant today is that I am retired from the service of government of India where I worked for thirty four years in senior positions ending just below the top of my department. I retired more than twenty years ago. To be fruitfully engaged I took to blogging and writing articles, initially, on local issues but now for years I have been writing on topical and environmental matters. The writings in the local supplement of a national daily gave me some kind of a positive identity in the town which culminated in my being nominated to be a founder member of Bhopal Citizens' Forum, a powerful pressure group. I am , I think, fruitfully engaged and I have no complaints against life.